[Number 6 lifts his gaze back to Arthur, turning toward the man and giving "Steve" plenty of opening with his back to the bathroom door.]
What does it mean to you? I was polite enough not to ask at that first meeting but now I think-- AH!
[Mid-sentence, his ears prick at the suspicious sound of someone behind him. But, it's too late. That someone is on his back, and there follows a sharp jab in his neck. He's horribly familiar with that pain. Staggered, he turns to see who has drugged him and gasps in horror.]
Billy? How did you...?
[His eyes snap back to Arthur. His voice raises in urgent insistence directed toward the blind man. He doesn't have much time. Already he can feel the gauzy warmth of the sedative settling over him. His speech is slurred and he has to try very hard to enunciate this final warning.]
Arthur... if you are not... one of them... beware. That's... not...Steve...He's an...imposter...
[He can't fight gravity. So, rather than let himself fall and injure his head even more, he sinks to his knees willingly and braces his hands against the floor that suddenly feels both close and far away.]
What did you... give me...?
[The drug pulls at him, tugging on his mind as if separating it from the rest of him. He can still feel that his hands are on the floor, but it's joined by a sensation of falling. That would be his muscles giving way, letting him drop down prone, face-first, to the carpet at last. But he's too far gone, swimming in some unseen current, to even register the pain of his nose meeting the flood head-on. Some part of his rational self remarks that he ought to be afraid, but he simply doesn't have the capacity for it at present.]
cw: drugs/drugging
What does it mean to you? I was polite enough not to ask at that first meeting but now I think-- AH!
[Mid-sentence, his ears prick at the suspicious sound of someone behind him. But, it's too late. That someone is on his back, and there follows a sharp jab in his neck. He's horribly familiar with that pain. Staggered, he turns to see who has drugged him and gasps in horror.]
Billy? How did you...?
[His eyes snap back to Arthur. His voice raises in urgent insistence directed toward the blind man. He doesn't have much time. Already he can feel the gauzy warmth of the sedative settling over him. His speech is slurred and he has to try very hard to enunciate this final warning.]
Arthur... if you are not... one of them... beware. That's... not...Steve...He's an...imposter...
[He can't fight gravity. So, rather than let himself fall and injure his head even more, he sinks to his knees willingly and braces his hands against the floor that suddenly feels both close and far away.]
What did you... give me...?
[The drug pulls at him, tugging on his mind as if separating it from the rest of him. He can still feel that his hands are on the floor, but it's joined by a sensation of falling. That would be his muscles giving way, letting him drop down prone, face-first, to the carpet at last. But he's too far gone, swimming in some unseen current, to even register the pain of his nose meeting the flood head-on. Some part of his rational self remarks that he ought to be afraid, but he simply doesn't have the capacity for it at present.]